Faecombe County: Faecombe County, #1

By Gayla Drummond

Sheriff Paige Anne Carson has her hands full even on good days: Faecombe County Texas is home to enough weres, elves, and other magical beasts that keeping the peace among them is a challenge.
Add the explosive powder of an ex returning to town and a series of otherworldly murders, and Paige Anne's days just went from bad to worse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katarr Kanticles Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223378259

Gayla Drummond

Author and rescue advocate. Metal Dog. Adopt, don't shop!

Book preview

One

PUT THE BROWNIE DOWN.

Stig hungry.

Stig’s gonna be hurting in three seconds if he doesn’t put that brownie down. I made the threat while letting my hands transform so he’d realize that I meant business. The usual ache preceded the cracking of bone and cartilage.

Stig, a small, dark gray critter with pebbly skin and stunted wings, tilted his bulldog head at the noise, and blinked his big, yellow eyes. Sheriff said she wouldn’t hurt Stig.

"Sheriff—I mean, I said I wouldn’t hurt you as long as you didn’t eat any brownies. Now put the damn brownie down or I’ll trim your ears."

His long, pointed ears drooped and he pouted while carefully setting the brownie down. Once released, the brownie cursed in its mosquito whine of a voice, kicked the demonling’s stubby toe, and then hauled ass.

My hands returned to human as I took two steps to reach Stig. Grabbing the scruff of his neck, I hauled him up to eye level. Miz Terry doesn’t want you coming into her yard anymore.

But...

No buts about it, Stig. Keep it up and I’ll stick you in a box bound for Mexico. I narrowed my eyes. They feed your kind to hellhounds over there.

The demonling’s round face crumpled. I put him down and nudged the toe of my left boot against his rear. Get out of here.

Stig slunk away on all fours, his short tail tucked between his hind legs. I watched until he disappeared from sight, and then went to let Miz Terry know I’d run off the little creep.

Some sheriffs get crack dealers, fugitives, and car chases.

I get demonic pests, shifter bar fights, and migrating beasties with a taste for human flesh.

Twenty minutes and a couple of oatmeal raisin cookies later, I climbed into my truck and continued my rounds. Though small, Braveblood had an active nightlife, thanks to the vampires. They were tourist draws, so not many folks complained about them, and they—the vamps—never had to worry about going hungry. Nikolai was our local master, and he usually kept his people in line.

He also owned three of the seven clubs in town. Of the others, one was humans only, two were shifter owned, and the last was the classiest joint in town, owned by the elven Prince, Diouc. Even as the sheriff of Faecombe County, I wasn’t welcome there, so I made a point of dropping in a few times each week.

My mom thinks that indicates I have a masochistic streak a mile wide, since elves believe all other Homo Supernaturalian species are vermin. They only deal with us because they have to, and it always involves a lot of sneering and insults.

Tonight, I was too tired to deal with their superiority complexes.

The one club I’m fully welcome at is MacDuff’s, the human-only establishment. Burney, the proprietor, is sweet on my mom and bends his rules for me.

Upon finishing my normal patrol route, I called into the office while driving there, and pulled into the parking lot. My gun belt went into the spelled box mounted on the floorboard of my truck before I stripped off my uniform shirt and untucked the tank I wore beneath it.

After locking the truck, I headed inside the low-slung, rectangular building.

Stella, a skinny bleach blonde and the youngest of Burney’s bartenders, had a coke on the rocks waiting before I finished waving in response to the chorus of Hey, Sheriff. I noticed she was sporting a new pair of holes in her neck as I took a seat at the bar. She handed over the glass. Evenin’, Paige Ann.

Evening. Still dating Tommy, I see. I hope you’re taking supplements and eating plenty.

Her carefree grin surfaced. We were the same age—twenty-seven—and I couldn’t remember ever being carefree. Stella made a career of it. I am. How’s your love life?

Nothing to gossip about, so don’t. I took a long drink while looking around. Kind of quiet tonight.

You missed the screaming. She snickered. Joanne caught Dean dancing with Mary again.

Don’t think I ain’t happy to have missed that. Those three were the town’s resident love triangle, and I’d spent more than a few hours keeping Joanne from whipping the other two during my nine months as sheriff. They were more trouble than Stig’s appetite for small folk. Any other excitement?

She shook her head and moved away in response to a raised glass from the other end of the bar. Left on my own, I finished my drink and decided to call it a night. Before rising from my stool, I tucked a five in her tip jar.

Once outside, I stopped in the middle of the parking lot to let the warm night breeze chase away the chill of air conditioning. This late—almost ten-thirty—more than half the town was already abed, or about to be. The rest were in the clubs, or holding up the counters of five convenience stores and three motels, waiting for the drunk rush that always followed last call.

Tomorrow, after church and gossip-trading during lunch, everyone would know who’d been ticketed for public intoxication, who’d gotten hauled in for driving under the influence, and who’d felt romantically inclined enough to rent a room—likely with someone they shouldn’t have.

I glanced at the sky. The moon was in mid-diet phase, but would be her fat, happy self again in six days. My deputies would be kept hopping and the dispatchers would be bitching about the number of calls the days before, after, and of the full moon. The moon didn’t bring out the beast only in shifters.

With a sudden grin dawning on my face, I continued on to my truck, ready to head home. Normally, the good folks of the county wouldn’t have voted a spring chicken like me into such a position of power and authority, but two things had won them over to my corner during the election.

Well, I guess it was really three. First, I can trace my lineage back to one of the town founders. Second, the former sheriff didn’t run for re-election, and third, I’d caught the beastie—a Camazotz—that had eaten him, the police chief, and two-thirds of the police force while everyone else was busy chasing their own tails.

If catching migrating beasties was the entire job, I’d be one happy sheriff. But that wasn’t all there was to it. There was the bean-counting, monthly meetings, constant training, deputies, and prisoners to keep track of. Plus, talking down those whom our elven residents pissed off, to prevent impromptu tarring and feathering parties.

That last thing took more time than anyone would believe.

Since the surviving one-third of the police department had all quit, the only ones left to lay down the law in Braveblood were my deputies and me, the aforementioned twenty-seven-year-old who still lives with her mother.

Yes, I still live with my mom, though I don’t inhabit the basement. We don’t have one. What we do have is an old church on the edge of town that has been remodeled so we’re not in each other’s hair all the time. The kitchen is the only shared room in the place. We have our own sets of rooms on either side of it. Mom’s is the bigger portion because she needs her workroom, which doubles as a classroom.

She teaches various crafts when she’s not busy cooking up potions.

I’ve a father running around the world somewhere, but don’t really know much about him, except that he turns furry three nights a month and is a rare were-liger. Those things I know because they also apply to me.

Shifters don’t usually play footsie between their species, but accidents do happen. The odd one may find a more human candidate for the making of babies with though, so I guess my absent father is both rare and odd. Being half-witch gives me a little more control over my shifter side than the purebloods have. Once the shift starts spreading beyond the change of eye color, they’re stuck going whole hog.

Not me. I can stop it—except on full moon nights. Gotta shift then, no two ways about it.

It all adds up to being completely trusted by no group. I’ve learned to both live and work with that.

I rolled down the window while pulling out of the parking lot. SOP, since you can’t hear anything important, such as a cry for help, with the windows up and radio chatter bouncing off them. Well, I could, but most of the department was human, and it was a small way of fitting in.

All I heard was the dry rustle of leaves, the sleepy clucking of hens in someone’s backyard, the thudding bass box of a car a few streets over, and a couple of feral cats wrestling over garbage.

Home was dark when I pulled into the drive on my side of the old church. Once parked, I touched the box and muttered the necessary word to open it. After collecting my gun belt, I locked the truck and started for the door, but a soft crunching noise stopped me in my tracks. Who’s there?

No answer. Call me a fool, but grass don’t crush itself. Ain’t in the mood for games, so get on out here.

A small, bulky shape crept out from under one of the rose bushes lining the north side of the drive. I relaxed. What the hell are you doing here?

He sat up, lifting his big yellow eyes to my face. Stig has nowhere, Sheriff.

If you’d quit munching on little folk, someone would keep you. Demonlings were low on smarts, but basically harmless. Several had found homes by turning to careers as vermin eaters.

Stig doesn’t like rats. Or mice, spiders, he continued listing his dislikes until I held up a hand to stop him.

For cryin’ out loud, I get it.

He sniffled, rubbing one squat fingered hand over his stomach. Stig doesn’t want to starve.

I shook my head. You can’t eat the little folk. Not in my county.

The demonling threw himself at my boots, blubbering about how he was going to starve to death. I stared down, trying not to feel sorry for him.

I failed. Hush up. I’ll dig something out of the fridge for you.

Sheriff will feed Stig?

Yeah, in the house. Now. He bounced for the door when I pointed at it, his wings fluttering. There was slobber